This morning was rough. Everyone was tired and there was yelling. I’ve decided I’ve got to set a timer for this post.
So I’ve set a timer for 60 minutes. I will then take a few minutes to find a picture and look over the formatting just a bit, but it will be 1 hour of writing. The past few nights I’ve written for 90 minutes or more and I just don’t think that will work right now.
Behind on Groceries
This morning part of the grumpiness is that I haven’t done our grocery shopping for the week. You know, the shopping I normally do on Sundays so the kids have breakfast, snack and lunch items. And yes, this is Thursday.
So I solemnly promised Ben that I would acquire groceries before tomorrow. Then I looked at my schedule. I had scheduled myself to work most of the morning and most of the afternoon. I had my noon workout and only about an hour or so to come home, change clothes and eat.
I have been using the Reasor’s online ordering system and picking it up as there is no additional cost if you spend at least $30. And when do I ever not spend that much at the grocery store? The only issue is that you have to order at least 6 hours in advance of when you want to pick it up.
I have been struggling a lot with planning ahead since Kraston got sick. This is a major reason why I am only working the limited hours that I do. I don’t feel very capable of the project management involved in being responsible for projects.
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My 1st Experience with Shipt
So when I got to work a few minutes early this morning, I decided to check out Shipt (grocery delivery service from local participating grocery stores). Reasors and Target are the two participating stores in my city and have both been promoting the service. I have been hesitating to check it out because it costs $99 per year as a membership fee and then increases the cost of each item you order around 15% to cover the cost of the service.
Kraston used to shop at Reasor’s but switched to Target a few years ago when we realized that it was a fair amount cheaper. I have been using Reasor’s the past few months just because of the online pickup option.
So I decided to do a price comparison between Reasor’s online pickup and Target’s Shipt pricing. I quickly added about 20 of my “Favorites” on the Reasor’s app and put the same items in a Shipt cart. The grand total was within $1.
So I placed my first Shipt order from Target. Now there were still a few items that I wanted from Reasor’s that Target didn’t have, so I also placed a small Shipt order from there. I was able to schedule them both for the hour I was home for lunch.
Both ladies texted me when they started shopping, half hour before my schedule delivery window. The Target shopper called me about a couple of substitions and was easy to work with. The Reasor’s shopper didn’t have to make any substitutions. They both texted me when they left the store and again after they left my house. Both ladies were very nice and brought my groceries right into my kitchen. We chatted for just a minute and they went about their way.
So in conclusion, if you are shopping at Reasor’s, I’d recommend taking a look to see if Target has any significant amount of your usual items as it appears to be about 15% cheaper on the items it does have. And if you are struggling with finding the time to shop or have a problem with impulse buying, you might check out Shipt.
If you decide you want to check it out, here is my referral link where both of us get $10 off of a future order.
Boy Emotions
Ben, my “I don’t have feelings” boy, had some big feelings this afternoon. Sherita, my nanny, said that he threw a fit at school because she picked them up earlier than he expected. Rosemary had a play date with our neighbor, her 8th grade mentor at 4, so she picked them up right after school. Usually this playdate ocurrs on Tuesdays, so Ben wasn’t expecting to be picked up right after school.
Until this year (so the previous 3 school years), Ben has always been in after care until 5:30-5:45 pretty much every day. Now that I have Sherita, she picks them up anywhere from 3:15-4:30 depending on what is going on that day. Ben gets pretty cranky when he gets picked up early because then he doesn’t get to spend as much time with his friend Spencer. But Rosemary and Gabriel both like being picked up early. So its a difficult balance.
Then when I got home, I reminded the kids that they didn’t get to play on their Kindles today since they didn’t take care of their afternoon list yesterday in order to be ready to go to school on time this morning. Late to school means no Kindles. Ben didn’t remember so he was upset about that. I told him we talk about our feelings in this house and let him work it out. Eventually he felt better enough to play outside with his siblings.
ACTS Retreat Team
For the past, I don’t know, 10 weeks, I think it is now, I have been meeting with 32 other lovely ladies from my church on Thursday evenings as we plan and prepare the upcoming ACTS Retreat (it is the weekend after Easter). Kraston got to be on the Team for the ACTS retreat twice in 2016 after we made our retreats in the fall of 2015. I have stayed involved somewhat peripherally, but he was the hospitality guy, so I let him do his thing while I stayed home with the kids.
When my friend Jackie invited me to be on Team last December, I said I would think about it. I don’t know that I would ever have asked to be on Team, though I longed to be a part of that aspect of the ACTS community. But having been asked, I decided to pray about it.
I asked my parents if they would be up to watching the kids for 4 nights in April and they said yes. Since I have my nanny who would get the kids in bed while I was at my meeting each week, it felt like maybe it was my turn. I didn’t have any physical obstacles.
Only mental ones.
The type of service and hospitality traits that I observe in many other people don’t come naturally to me. For as long as I can remember, I have been kind of a control freak about a variety of things. I don’t like not being able to find things. I like my laundry, my dishes, my groceries etc put away in the same place, in the same way, every time. I remember this one time that I freaked out on my sister in college when she put my groceries away “wrong” in the refrigerator.
So when I was away from home, like when I am at other people’s houses or at church, I have never been able to just jump in and doing things. I was a perfectionist and if I didn’t know exactly where things were or how someone wanted something done, I’d have been too anxious to offer to help.
Since I have had to accept so much help this past year and have been working on things being “good enough”, I find myself offering to help just a little bit more. I’m still really self-conscious about it at times. But my desire to serve on Team finally out-weighed my anxiety about not being good enough.
Maybe I just had enough people praying for me.
So I said yes.
And my timer is up.
Good Night!